All entries for Sunday 01 May 2011

May 01, 2011

Have you ever thought about the fact that no two people will tend to make the same decision or act in a similar manner even if they are given exactly the same information. Interesting, right?

We all are different and that's what makes everything so interesting. No matter how much we talk about being unbiased and robust, we all tend to add a certain element of our own nature and characterisitcs to the decisions we make. We can never be fully unbiased. We are not GOD. Ever since we are born, we are born with a bias. Everything that we have watched, observed and understood from the time we are born, slowly and powerfully becomes a part of us and moulds us into who we are today. Infact biasness is a very crucial part of our individuality. We are biased towards different colors, people, clothes, food, etc. This is what we are and this is what makes us different from the others. Imagine a world where no one is biased. Wouldn't it be so boring? Everyone would be okay with everything, what a perfect world? We all talk about being perfect but a world that is too perfect can be deathly scary actually.

Our biasness greatly influence our lives and the decisions we make. Bias is what makes us or destroys us. We are actually a product of our own bias. And there is nothing wrong with that. Make your mistakes and learn from them. Faliure actually brings us even closer to our success.

Since no one can be totally unbiased, can we actually try and be biased towards the right decision. Deep, right? But its possible I think. Easy and straightforward..Be well informed, always and your biasness will lead you to the right decision automaitically. Simple. Infact, eat right, be in good company, make right friends, watch informative things, read interesting things and then you'll be an intelligent person who'll be able to make the right decisions. All you would need to do is go a step further, research and gather information!! So in conclusion, be biased but towards the right decision ;)

Today, while studying about biases that arise from heuristics and the mental models we have, I recollected an incident from the rdm study week. I still remember working on the presentation, I was trying to use Paired Comparison to allocate the appropriate marketing mix for the adveritising campaign. When I was trying to do the Paired Comparion, I realised that I was allocating numbers from the top of my head, accroding to my own subjectivity and through whatever little knew about different advertising campaigns. In the first attempt, this decision tool was completely based on my subjectivity on the given choices. However, in the group meeting we realised that if we use the decision tool this way, it will be extremely unreliable and biased. As a result, on the suggestion of one of our team members we decided to extensively research on the subject. We the analysed, researched different advertising mix on the internet, journals, etc. and gathered information by even personally calling associate personnel. We then found gathering information through different sources a very helpful step in removing bias and making robust decisions. The final decision that we made was finally a roubust decision after all the hardwork! I then realised that we make so many decisions in our day to day life based on our prior knowledge or no knowledge. Subjectivity will always come one on the way of making a roubst decision. We should always try to remove this big obstacle and introduce objectivity in our deciison. For this, It is very very important to gather as much information as we can to make a reliable and robust decision.